Positronium Laser Cooling via the 13S-23P Transition with a Broadband Laser Pulse

Abstract

We report on laser cooling of a large fraction of positronium (Ps) in free flight by strongly saturating the 13S-23P transition with a broadband, long-pulsed 243 nm alexandrite laser. The ground state Ps cloud is produced in a magnetic and electric field-free environment.We observe two different laser-induced effects. The first effect is an increase in the number of atoms in the ground state after the time Ps has spent in the long-lived 23P states. The second effect is one-dimensional Doppler cooling of Ps, reducing the cloud’s temperature from 380(20) to 170(20) K.We demonstrate a 58(9)% increase in the fraction of Ps atoms with v1D < 3.7 × 104 ms−1.